Schoos Move To Geneva, Hope To Leave Drive-by Hecklers Behind

June 26, 1993|By Ted Gregory and Hal Dardick.

Since January, the rural St. Charles neighborhood where David and Sharon Schoo lived had taken on a mean, circuslike atmosphere. This week the couple took a step toward putting the area behind them, and in the process perhaps distance themselves from their infamous reputation.

The couple, who gained international notoriety for leaving their two young daughters home alone during the Christmas holidays while they vacationed in Acapulco, were by some accounts the world's most vilified parents.

Within days of their arrest on Dec. 29 at O'Hare International Airport, the press and the public declared open season on the couple.

The Schoos sold their St. Charles home and moved Thursday to an apartment in Geneva.

From one neighbor's point of view, the move probably was best for the Schoos and the neighborhood they left behind.

"They were so harassed," said former neighbor Karen Wilkes, who lived two doors south of the Schoos. "Cars would go by at all times of the day and night and honk their horns and shout at the house. We never had traffic like that before. "I'm more or less glad they moved."

Reclusive since they moved to the neighborhood nearly two years ago, the Schoos sought even more privacy after their arrest and prosecution, neighbors said.

Attorneys for the couple reached a plea bargain with prosecutors on April 19. The agreement allows the parents to be reunited with their daughters, Nicole, 10, and Diana, 4, if David, 45, and Sharon Schoo, 36, undergo psychological treatment and if monitored visits with the children go smoothly.

The parents were restricted to home confinement for 30 days. They also are required to perform 200 hours of community service at a children's hospital as part of their two years of probation.

The relocation falls within the dictates of their probation, said David Clark, chief of the administrative division in the Kane County state's attorney's office.

The Schoos would have violated their probation had they moved from Kane County, Clark added.

The daughters, separated from their parents since December, have visited their parents but remain in foster care, authorities said.

The house was placed on the market before the Schoos left for Mexico, Clark said. The couple's attorney, relatives and neighbors said the Schoos never felt comfortable in the St. Charles neighborhood since arriving from Aurora.

"The property went up for sale because they just didn't like the bulk of their neighbors," said attorney Gerard Kepple, representing the Schoos in their criminal case.

BB pellets were shot through basement windows of their home, and children would run through the Schoos' yard attempting to jump in their pool, Kepple said.

Those experiences prompted the already private parents to place their home on the market, Kepple said.

Neighbors said they carry no bitterness toward the couple.

"They've been to court," said Dave Wilkes, Karen's husband. "Obviously, they did something very wrong, but I figure they already have been punished."